A Crooked Tree by Una Mannion
A Crooked Tree is one of those books which I've seen all over social media, so I was delighted when it suddenly appeared on my library's shelves.
It is the early 1980s and fifteen-year-old Libby is obsessed with The Field Guide to the Trees of North America, a gift her Irish immigrant father gave her before he died. She finds solace in “The Kingdom,” a stand of red oak and thick mountain laurel near her home in suburban Pennsylvania, where she can escape from her large and unruly family and share menthol cigarettes and lukewarm beers with her best friend.
One night, while driving home, Libby’s mother, exhausted and overwhelmed with the fighting in the backseat, pulls over and orders Libby’s little sister Ellen to walk home. What none of this family knows as they drive off leaving a twelve-year-old girl on the side of the road five miles from home with darkness closing in, is what will happen next.
A Crooked Tree opens with Libby's mother pulling the car over and ordering Libby's little sister Ellen to walk home. This was all I needed to be told to know that I wanted to read this book. I wanted to find out what happened next, but also what had happened to this family for them to get to this point. And that is exactly what we find out. A Crooked Tree isn't the kind of book you might expect; it's more accurate to describe it as literary fiction, or a coming-of-age story, than a mystery or thriller, but it is nevertheless a compelling and tense read.
This book had me hooked from the start, and not just because of that brilliant opener. I loved the style of writing, and would definitely want to check out anything Una Mannion wrote in future. I also immediately liked our protagonist, Libby. One of the great things about a young protagonist is the tension between what they think is happening and what the reader thinks is happening, and this is aided, in A Crooked Tree, by the fact that Libby is a natural worrier. The reader shares in her anxieties and uncertainties, as her life builds to a crisis point, in the aftermath of her mother's fateful decision to leave Ellen by the side of the road.
I immediately fell in love with A Crooked Tree, and soon found myself unable to put it down. I look forward to anything Mannion might write in future.
It is the early 1980s and fifteen-year-old Libby is obsessed with The Field Guide to the Trees of North America, a gift her Irish immigrant father gave her before he died. She finds solace in “The Kingdom,” a stand of red oak and thick mountain laurel near her home in suburban Pennsylvania, where she can escape from her large and unruly family and share menthol cigarettes and lukewarm beers with her best friend.
One night, while driving home, Libby’s mother, exhausted and overwhelmed with the fighting in the backseat, pulls over and orders Libby’s little sister Ellen to walk home. What none of this family knows as they drive off leaving a twelve-year-old girl on the side of the road five miles from home with darkness closing in, is what will happen next.
A Crooked Tree opens with Libby's mother pulling the car over and ordering Libby's little sister Ellen to walk home. This was all I needed to be told to know that I wanted to read this book. I wanted to find out what happened next, but also what had happened to this family for them to get to this point. And that is exactly what we find out. A Crooked Tree isn't the kind of book you might expect; it's more accurate to describe it as literary fiction, or a coming-of-age story, than a mystery or thriller, but it is nevertheless a compelling and tense read.
This book had me hooked from the start, and not just because of that brilliant opener. I loved the style of writing, and would definitely want to check out anything Una Mannion wrote in future. I also immediately liked our protagonist, Libby. One of the great things about a young protagonist is the tension between what they think is happening and what the reader thinks is happening, and this is aided, in A Crooked Tree, by the fact that Libby is a natural worrier. The reader shares in her anxieties and uncertainties, as her life builds to a crisis point, in the aftermath of her mother's fateful decision to leave Ellen by the side of the road.
I immediately fell in love with A Crooked Tree, and soon found myself unable to put it down. I look forward to anything Mannion might write in future.
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